In two words, this was how the thing happened: My lady's eldest sister married the celebrated Mr. Blake--equally famous
for his great riches, and his great suit at law. How many years he
went on worrying the tribunals of his country to turn out the Duke in
possession, and to put himself in the Duke's place--how many lawyer's
purses he filled to bursting, and how many otherwise harmless people
he set by the ears together disputing whether he was right or wrong--is
more by a great deal than I can reckon up. His wife died, and two of his
three children died, before the tribunals could make up their minds to
show him the door and take no more of his money. When it was all over,
and the Duke in possession was left in possession, Mr. Blake discovered
that the only way of being even with his country for the manner in
which it had treated him, was not to let his country have the honour
of educating his son. "How can I trust my native institutions," was the
form in which he put it, "after the way in which my native institutions
have behaved to ME?" Add to this, that Mr. Blake disliked all boys,
his own included, and you will admit that it could only end in one
way. Master Franklin was taken from us in England, and was sent to
institutions which his father COULD trust, in that superior country,
Germany; Mr. Blake himself, you will observe, remaining snug in England,
to improve his fellow-countrymen in the Parliament House, and to publish
a statement on the subject of the Duke in possession, which has remained
an unfinished statement from that day to this.
There! thank God, that's told! Neither you nor I need trouble our heads
any more about Mr. Blake, senior. Leave him to the Dukedom; and let you
and I stick to the Diamond.
The Diamond takes us back to Mr. Franklin, who was the innocent means of
bringing that unlucky jewel into the house.
Our nice boy didn't forget us after he went abroad. He wrote every now
and then; sometimes to my lady, sometimes to Miss Rachel, and sometimes
to me. We had had a transaction together, before he left, which
consisted in his borrowing of me a ball of string, a four-bladed knife,
and seven-and-sixpence in money--the colour of which last I have not
seen, and never expect to see again. His letters to me chiefly related
to borrowing more. I heard, however, from my lady, how he got on
abroad, as he grew in years and stature. After he had learnt what the
institutions of Germany could teach him, he gave the French a turn next,
and the Italians a turn after that. They made him among them a sort of
universal genius, as well as I could understand it. He wrote a
little; he painted a little; he sang and played and composed a
little--borrowing, as I suspect, in all these cases, just as he had
borrowed from me. His mother's fortune (seven hundred a year) fell to
him when he came of age, and ran through him, as it might be through a
sieve. The more money he had, the more he wanted; there was a hole in
Mr. Franklin's pocket that nothing would sew up. Wherever he went, the
lively, easy way of him made him welcome. He lived here, there, and
everywhere; his address (as he used to put it himself) being "Post
Office, Europe--to be left till called for." Twice over, he made up his
mind to come back to England and see us; and twice over (saving your
presence), some unmentionable woman stood in the way and stopped him.
His third attempt succeeded, as you know already from what my lady told
me. On Thursday the twenty-fifth of May, we were to see for the first
time what our nice boy had grown to be as a man. He came of good blood;
he had a high courage; and he was five-and-twenty years of age, by our
reckoning. Now you know as much of Mr. Franklin Blake as I did--before
Mr. Franklin Blake came down to our house.